TransCoastal Marine Services, a Houston-based marine construction company, filed for liquidation Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, citing claims against the company by a Chevron subsidiary of nearly $30 million.

The local company, which has been publicly traded since 1997, filed Chapter 7 petitions for the subsidiaries in its Pipeline & Marine Group and said the group had discontinued operations.

Trading in the company's stock was halted early Wednesday morning by Nasdaq Stock Market, where the company's value has plummeted in recent months.

In May, one of TransCoastal's subsidiaries, Dickson GMP International, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization after Chevron Global Technology Services pushed claims against Dickson amounting to nearly $30 million. Officials with TransCoastal says Chevron's claims are unfounded but that Chevron's pursuit of the claims made it impossible for TransCoastal to complete a recapitalization that would have given it a critical infusion of $15 million in equity required by its lenders.

In arbitration proceedings, Chevron had agreed not to draw on TransCoastal letters of credit before mid-September, but it's pursuit of the claims may have been encouraged by TransCoastal's announcement on March 21 that it was in default on certain debt obligations and would not meet a month-end deadline for finding the investment capital.

The company's stock lost nearly 47 percent of its value after that announcement. Not long after, TransCoastal hired Houston energy investment banking firm Simmons & Co. for advice.

When it went public in November of 1997, TransCoastal was a rollup of four privately owned marine construction businesses. Its stock three years ago priced at just under $30, but its last trade was at less than 20 cents. In the two-year period from December 31, 1997, to December 31, 1999, the stock went from $14.25 to $2.88, a loss in value of nearly 80 percent.

Last year the company lost $104 million, and for the first quarter of this year its, losses totaled $9.8 million on revenue down 65 percent. The company currently has a working capital deficit of $75 million.

TransCoastal attributes its demise in part to the downturn in oil and gas prices in 1998. In its annual report for last year, the company said the revenues of its Pipeline and Marine Group were down 48 percent because of decreased 1999 capital expenditure budgets of its customers -- oil and gas companies that drastically cut back their exploration and production activities when oil and gas prices fell in 1998.

TransCoastal's cash flow problems were further exacerbated in December when a Mexican joint venture partner who was the general contractor on a major contract was out of money and stopped work on the construction project in the Gulf of Mexico. The partner owed TransCoastal $20 million at the end of 1999.